From Victims to Victimizers: - DePaul in the News - DePaul University

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Poor health caused retirement for a few. One
explained that his health deteriorated from
abuse of alcohol, and once he stopped drinking
he “didn’t have the stomach for it. I couldn’t do
that sober, treating people like cattle.” Now he
is “broke” on SSI and has a lot of medical
problems. Liver disease has claimed the
livelihood of another pimp.
Others said they simply got too old for the
business: “I’m not as young as I used to be. Like
I said, it’s about control and a little fear. The
older you get the less people fear you, so you
get replaced.”
Several of the women left pimping because they
were robbed or beaten, perhaps in efforts to
drive them from the business. Still others were
defeated by the law, because they are now on
parole, are in battles with the IRS, or were shut
down by the police. Several of the women have
quit the business in an effort to get their
children back. Others left pimping because of
the death of some of their girls or women. One
man said that when one of his women gave
birth to his child, he quit the business: “I love my
kid. I can’t have my kid’s mother hustling. If
things get tight, I still post a girl or two.” He is
now making money by building websites.
However, most of the ex-pimps in our sample
who are employed have generally remained
involved in the entertainment industry. Some
play at clubs or work as floor managers, DJs,
bartenders or cab drivers. One works in the
gambling industry on a boat in Indiana and at an
off-track betting place.
Some men in our sample now sell jewelry,
clothes and perfume, some of which may be
fraudulent knock-offs. Others, both men and
women, live with others who support them: “I
married a woman with money. We share a small
business and I’m a deacon in the church,
thinking about becoming a minister.”
When pimping became unavailable to them,
several in our sample tried selling crack cocaine
or marijuana but did not like the business. Most
have remained in the entertainment industry,
probably because low educational attainment
and years of pimping did not open doors to
other occupations for them.
Only when pimping became too dangerous or
out-and-out impossible due to ill health did
these men and women give it up. Given the
large amount of money they made ($150,000 to
$500,000 annually) and the general lack of
danger, pimping remained more attractive than
selling drugs or other off-market activities.
VIII. DISCUSSION
Prior research has documented the strategies
pimps employ to recruit girls for the sex trade
industry under the guise of affection or by use
of deceit, 3 although still unknown is the
percentage of women and girls under the
control of pimps at any given time. What is
largely not understood, however, are the
reasons young men and women decide to
participate as pimps and how they view the
industry and their participation in it—
information that would be useful for strategies
to combat pimping and trafficking.
When we look at the sex trade industry from the
viewpoint of pimps and madams, we see a
landscape of unfettered demand and an
industry, although illegal, supported by a large
cast of characters, including some law
enforcement officers, hotel and convention
personnel, bartenders, and cab drivers. By and
large, participation in the industry appears to
present no danger, little hard work and large
financial payoffs. This finding is corroborated by
May and colleagues’ interviews with 16 pimps,
half of whom told the researchers that pimping
was a deliberate choice owing to the lucrative
nature of the work and “the lack of effort
involved.” 4
As a result of their early household experiences,
men and women in our sample have been
damaged by both physical and sexual assault
and by witnessing domestic violence. Sixty
percent had family members involved in
prostitution and 68 percent sold their own
bodies as well, some under force and coercion
at very young ages. The women, especially, had
been subjected to sexual abuse and were forced
into prostitution when very young by parents.
Almost half said they ran away from home at
early ages.
3 James F. Hodgson, Games Pimps Play: Pimps, Players and Wives-in-Law: A Qualitative Analysis of Street
Prostitution (Toronto, Canadian Scholars’ Press, 1997); Tiggey May, Alex Harocopos, and Michael Hough, “For Love or
Money: Pimps and the Management of Sex Work,” 2000 report from the UK Home Office, available at
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icpr/publications/Pimps.pdf; Kennedy et. al., “Routes of Recruitment:
Pimps’ Techniques and Other Circumstances That Lead to Street Prostitution,” Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment
& Trauma, 15 (2007); “Domestic Sex Trafficking, footnote 1, supra.
4 May et. al., “For Love or Money.”